Mary Russell - Doc

The dentist stumbled slightly, crossing the tracks. Eli caught him by the elbow and held on.

“Very kind of you, sir,” Holliday said, the movement of his chest shallow and quick. “A little light-headed, I fear.”

Pathetic, Eli thought, the way drunks will fool themselves.

They moved on toward the barn. Eli began to think the game through with calm detachment. After years of anticipating a bad beat, it was almost a relief to lose that big. Law of averages, he thought. Keep playing, and something like this is bound to happen. Never thought it would be Bob Wright who did the job, though. Funny how he’d thought Holliday might be the one, just on reputation alone, but the man didn’t play that well, really. In fact, every time he dealt—

Eli stopped, astonished, and looked back at the dentist. “You were feeding me cards!”

“Occasionally.”

“How did you do it?” Eli asked as they turned down Bridge. “I’m just curious.”

“Oh … I am not quite so sick as I make out,” Doc said carelessly, but when they got to the corral, he reached for the top rail and leaned over to spit blood. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Oh, Christ.”

Snapping his fingers, Eli pointed at him and said, “You switched decks while you were coughing!”

“Now and then.”

“So … you wanted me to win until the end of the game? Yes! Let me collect the money from the table, so you could clean up! Except … you lost.”

“That wasn’t part of the plan.” The dentist straightened, wincing when he pulled his shoulders back. His lips in the sunlight were nearly the color of his eyes. “Stupid mistake,” he said vaguely. “Only three of us …”

“But you wanted Roxana? You thought I’d bet her?”

“Yes,” Holliday said. “An’ I was hopin’ to leave some sort of legacy … Take care of Kate and Sophie.”

Who in hell was Sophie? Eli wondered. Some other hooker, he guessed. “I had a cousin who died of consumption,” he told the dentist. “Dolph used to say it felt like the inside of his chest was being scrubbed with a wire brush. Must make it hard to concentrate.”

“Yes.” With a visible act of will, John Henry Holliday’s voice became stronger, his diction more precise, his eyes more focused. “Where is that horse of yours?”

She was in a stall about halfway down the aisle. Restless. Annoyed with him. Tossing her head and snorting when he approached. So beautiful! She took Eli’s breath away, even now. Compact, high-tailed, with large, dark eyes and a broad jaw behind a small, velvety muzzle. She looked like she was made of china, but she was as tough as any mustang. Keen on patrol, Roxana had stood up well to the bitter cold and withering heat of Kansas. She could outlast every other mount at the fort, but she was hot and nervy, too, and often made life difficult in the stable.

“I’m going to miss her,” Eli admitted, opening the stall door for Holliday.

The dentist approached, speaking calmly, hands low. What in hell is he going to do with a horse? Eli wondered. He’ll be dead by Sunday, from the looks of him.

It came to him then that nobody knew they’d made this deal, and maybe Eli could reclaim the horse, the way he had after—

Without warning, Holliday gagged twice and twisted away, a short, sharp cough doubling him over. Startled, Roxana reared, and Eli shoved the dentist out of range before stepping in from the side to get a grip on her halter, murmuring, “Easy, easy, easy …” Eyes on Roxana, he warned, “You have to be careful until she knows you. She’s skittish, and she’s stronger than she looks—”

“Is this the way it happened?” Holliday asked softly.

Eli turned, and jerked his forehead away from a short-barreled, nickel-plated revolver. Roxana shied at the motion, moving back in the stall.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve sold that mare to cover a gamblin’ debt. Is it.”

“What are you—?”

“Lie to me,” the Georgian suggested with gentle, smiling malice. “I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“You needed money. Johnnie Sanders knew that. He did the books for half the businesses in Dodge. He offered two grand for the horse. You agreed. He went to the safe at Bob Wright’s store and met you at the barn with the cash.”

“Yes, but—”

“You accepted the money and then you brained that boy, you spineless, gutless, heartless bastard.”

“No!”

“You set fire to the barn, and raised the alarm, and walked away with the cash and the horse, both. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“But—No, it wasn’t that way at all! He—Yes! I sold the horse to him,” Eli admitted, “but I didn’t kill him—”

“You broke his skull and left him to die.”

“ No! Listen to me: I took the money and I went back to the saloon to pay off. When I came out, I swear, the barn was already on fire! I ran back—”

“Into a burnin’ building,” Holliday said, voice flat. “How courageous.”

“There were men sleeping in there!”

“So you raised the alarm.”

“Yes, of course!”

“You went back to Roxana’s stall, and you led her out.”

“I had to! She wouldn’t go past the flames! I got Roxana out and helped clear the barn, and when it was all over, I took her back to the fort—just overnight! I couldn’t leave her out on the street, could I? I figured I could come back in the morning and find the kid and sort it all out—”

“So you didn’t see Johnnie?”

“I figured he left. I had no idea he was still in the barn—”

Holliday pulled the hammer back. Eli flinched at the quiet click.

Speaking quickly now and quietly, he said, “I swear I didn’t hurt that boy. I ran back to the barn, and he was already on the ground. Roxana must have—You’ve seen it yourself! Look at her!” Eli cried, for the horse was showing white around her eyes. “She doesn’t trust strangers and she’s liable to go light on her front feet. I don’t think that kid knew the first thing about horses! He probably went into the stall and she came down on him.”

There was a curve to the fracture. It might have been the size of a hoof, but … “Doesn’t matter,” Doc insisted. “You turned his body over. You must have seen that he was still alive.”

“Maybe! Yes! I don’t know! I didn’t look that hard! It was dark, for crissakes! The roof was caving in and—”

“So you paid your debt, you got your horse and saved the cowboys. And you left John Horse Sanders to lie there and burn.”

Mouth dry, Eli tensed slightly, thinking he could—

“By all means,” Holliday urged courteously. “Try it.”

He’s going to kill me, Eli thought. This is how I’m going to die.

“Four years of war,” the Georgian said softly, “to teach them rebs a lesson and set their darkies free! But when it came down to your horse or that boy … Well, hell, he was just a colored kid, and kin to no one.” For an endless moment, John Henry Holliday just stood there, trembling. “God a’mighty,” he said quietly. “To think we lost to trash like you.”

As much as anything, it was the weight of the pistol that saved Elijah Garrett Grier’s life that morning. Suddenly and utterly exhausted, Doc lowered his gun, letting it dangle at his side.

“Bob Wright knows everything,” he said. “I recommend you run.”

Eli nodded his entire agreement but pointed out, “I’ll need a mount.”

Doc glanced toward the corral. “Pick one.”

“They hang horse thieves,” Grier objected.

“Only if you’re caught. Best hurry.”

“I—The money? For Roxana?”

Slate blue eyes went wide.

“ Toujours l’audace! ” Doc said with specious admiration. “The price was twenty-one sixty. Two grand will go to Miss Kate, to clear your debt to her. I will wire the remaining one hundred and sixty to my father. Grier and Cook Carriage Company owes him the money. That leaves me with thirty-eight dollars and change. Forgive me if I am not inclined to share that with a lyin’, low-life Yankee skunk. God as my witness: I should rid the world of you.”